Kurt Montandon
Member
The truck itself serves as a fuel truck, which is where the problem started:
After fueling a plane, I disengaged (it's a Chelsea locking air switch) the PTO, heard the driveshaft stop turning ... but the light didn't go out, and the truck wouldn't go into gear. After a few failed re-tries to disengage, the ramp crew had to push me out of the way. I turned the truck off then restarted, and the light stayed off and the truck would go into gear. That's the pattern now - I go through the procedure to engage the PTO, the light comes on, but nothing physical actually happens. The PTO doesn't start turning, but I can't put the truck into gear - the PTO's engaged as far as the interlocks are concerned, and after toggling it off the light stays on and it won't go into gear unless I restart the truck. Which suggests electrical rather than mechanical?
After checking a few other things, I pulled the solenoid off the PTO, and everything looks sound, but I have no expertise at this. The fork moves by hand, but that doesn't mean it moves by air of course. And the middle input gear looks like it sticks in too far for the output gear to mesh with. I have no documentation/diagrams/manuals to work from to see if everything's aligned right, so I've included a bunch of pictures for hopefully far more expert eyes to see and tell me if anything jumps out.
After fueling a plane, I disengaged (it's a Chelsea locking air switch) the PTO, heard the driveshaft stop turning ... but the light didn't go out, and the truck wouldn't go into gear. After a few failed re-tries to disengage, the ramp crew had to push me out of the way. I turned the truck off then restarted, and the light stayed off and the truck would go into gear. That's the pattern now - I go through the procedure to engage the PTO, the light comes on, but nothing physical actually happens. The PTO doesn't start turning, but I can't put the truck into gear - the PTO's engaged as far as the interlocks are concerned, and after toggling it off the light stays on and it won't go into gear unless I restart the truck. Which suggests electrical rather than mechanical?
After checking a few other things, I pulled the solenoid off the PTO, and everything looks sound, but I have no expertise at this. The fork moves by hand, but that doesn't mean it moves by air of course. And the middle input gear looks like it sticks in too far for the output gear to mesh with. I have no documentation/diagrams/manuals to work from to see if everything's aligned right, so I've included a bunch of pictures for hopefully far more expert eyes to see and tell me if anything jumps out.